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Maximum Prophet writes "Here's a thought: at the start, only rich people will be able to pay for a completely autonomous car. Auto-autos will only go the speed limit. Rich people don't like to go slow. Ergo, there won't be any market for automatic cars. Wait, I hear you say. The rich guy will just modify his car to go faster. But, if you go over the limit it's a fine, but to mess with the safety systems of even your own vehicle is probably a felony. Much more likely: the rich will get new laws passed to make it legal for automatic cars to go much, much faster than human-driven vehicles."

I'm pretty sure that if self-driving cars ever do become prevalent (and I'm skeptical, to say the least), they will all allow human manual override at any time. In other words, control freaks who can't stand traveling at the speed limit will be able to assume manual control at any time and gun it to whatever speed they like (and get tickets if they pass a cop). The self-driving feature will indeed appeal to the rich on their high-end cars at first, but not so much for what it can actually do as for the status symbol of having it. At least at first, most drivers will probably only actually *use it* for times when they're really tired or have other stuff to get done.

Never underestimate the power of a status symbol. I mean, how many well-to-do drivers actually regularly *use* even half the exclusive features on their high-end Mercedes? But they're still happy to pay extra for the top-tier package, just to say they've got the top-tier package. And I say that as someone who still pays for an OnStar and navigation package that I used to brag on to everyone, but that I've only ever used a few times.

Oh, and you'll still be able to honk at the slow-poke in front of you too. Because you know he can still manually take over and doesn't HAVE to be holding up traffic in auto-drive.

Automatic driving cars we'd be allowing on the road would have to be to the point of being safer than a human driver. Makes sense that we'd let them go faster.

Am... am I supposed to object to safer cars on the road because the people using them would have more money than me? When we're talking about tax cuts, there is at least an argument that it's a zero sum game, their gain is my loss. With traffic safety, that doesn't really apply.

Who do you think brought previously-expensive cars to the common man? A guy who wanted to be, and became, fabulously rich.

What cars had nav systems in them for 5 years before high-end midline cars? Yup! Cars of the wealthy. I know, I freakin' built those things.

God damm it, Mr. Da Peepul, put away that PC developed with trillions in private investment over the decades and go get a trabby from the junk yard and whine until your politician gives you a nav system and a robot driver.

And finally, speed limits will go up because robot drivers will be much safer. I predict, fucking write it down, that big The People government types like you will lead the charge to outlaw human drivers as unsafe.

Yep this is what's gonna happen until autonomous cars are ubiquitous. The real question is, once they are, will the speed limits be bumped up significantly and will traffic lights be phased out for synchronized high-speed dodging, or will we continue to tool around like grannies? In other words, will speed limits ruin the greatest potential improvement that autonomous cars have to offer?

It's not that the lights themselves are 'responsible' for accidents, it's the way people respond (or don't respond) to them that causes accidents. Driving is a giant game where everyone agrees to follow the same rules. If you don't follow the conventions and rules you significantly increase the risk of an accident. Speed conventions (which are set relative to speed limits, but not at them) and traffic lights are rules that exist primarily for the benefit of the average person, but on an individual basis you'd always be better to not have to follow them if you're trying to minimize the time you spend driving. People on foot of course are even worse when it comes to traffic lights, I think anyone who's been in any big city (first or 3rd world) is used to people trying to cross streets as soon as they possibly can regardless of whether the 'walk' light is lit up.

If you compare to europe, their entire thinking about travel is different than north america. European cars are designed more for interacting with pedestrians than interacting with cars. To that end, traffic lights in europe, and traffic in europe in general is completely different in pedestrian heavy places. If you take away traffic lights people are actually a great deal more safe, because they're trying to manouvre around pedestrians. Which goes to the second point, that without traffic lights, getting around can be really slow (unless you have a motorcade).

Probably a better way of saying what was said is "the presence of traffic lights makes drivers behave in ways more likely to cause accidents". Which sort of obviously makes sense, any time you ask someone to stop there's a probability that they won't stop, and therefore cause an accident.

But either way, the overall effect is there, it's a matter of which style you want to go with.

My city, in Canada, has converted to roundabouts. On my way to work I pass through 5 traffic lights and 6 roundabouts. The most dangerous of these to pedestrians is roundabouts based on our newspapers.

The problem is that in Europe, pedestrians are expected to cross in the middle of a street, or at least away from the intersection. Here, the cross walks are 3 feet away from the roundabout and priority is given to pedestrians. This makes the cross walk on the other side of the roundabout invisible until you are halfway through the roundabout (brush and raised humps on the roundabout are partly to blame, as is traffic) as which point stopping safely (so as no to cause accidents with other vehicles behind) is difficult, and makes pedestrians from the right invisible on a two lane roundabout with vehicles to the right stopped.

Pedestrians are safer in Europe because, from my experience in the UK, crosswalks rarely exist in the dangerous areas (intersections). Also, again, in the UK, pedestrians are often responsible for their own safety, and thus pay more attention. In Canada/USA pedestrians generally have the right of way on the side of the road they're crossing, even when doing so stupidly.

This kind of setup is increasingly common here in the UK, except the pedestrian crossings are implemented with lights too. This comes as a shock when first implemented, followed by a feeling of anger at the stupidity and the risk it will put pedestrians under, followed by annoyance - but I've not heard of an accident involving a pedestrian on these junctions here, only involving cars rear-ending other cars because they weren't concentrating well enough or were driving too fast. That said bridges and subways

With a fully autonomous system, cars in the appropriate directions would be told to stop after the pedestrian presses a button.

Not if they're designed right, they won't. With a fully autonomous system, the vehicles would by default prefer major roads over minor roads, and those major roads would often have pedestrian bridges. However, when a pedestrian needs to cross a road that lacks such bridges, the pedestrian pressing a button would change that preference.

Any vehicles within a span beginning a block away and extending to three blocks away would shift over one road in either direction. So as soon as the nearest block worth of traffic in either direction clears the intersection, the road would be clear for pedestrians for a period of time, but the cars themselves would not stop, or even slow down.

As for the cars when they are in manual mode? All intersections are to be treated as 4-way stops.

There would still have to be some sort of traffic lights for those vehicles. Preferably all-ways-red until a vehicle or bicycle sits on the sensor for a period of time. Incidentally, bicycles are potentially a concern because of their tendency to blow through stop signs and traffic lights....

I don't think that will be an option for a *long* time. As it stands now, if you are close to your car (and have your keys on you) you can be charged with DUI/DWI. The cops argue that you are technically in-control of your car any time you are near it.

I've seen two DUI busts while people were sitting in a non-running car listening to music. I've seen one for someone who went to get something out of the car without ever sitting inside or turning the ignition.

And as long as we have MADD, it'll be hard to change. They will always come back with "what ifs" and TOTC and lawmakers will roll over.

I actually suspect drunk driving (as well as most other traffic violations) will be a big factor in slowing down the adoption of autonomous cars. What city or state agency is going to want to give up the huge amounts of money that are collected on things like drunk driving? Cities and counties require crime at this time to stay solvent.

Yeah, I gotta say those laws really need to be clarified so the vehicle has to roll for it to count, or at least have the keys in the ignition. I mean come on "Driving" is right there in the name of the charge, not that that means anything.

Heck, I've heard accounts of people getting arrested for riding a horse drunk - now tell me how that makes any sense at all. Do they think the horse is going to ram into someone because his drunk-ass rider fell asleep at the reigns? They're the original autonomous vehi

One of the things that has been advertised as a big benefit for autonomous cars IS that much higher speeds are permissible while remaining safe. Similarly, much closer following distances are possible without compromising safety.

Many of our speed limits are based on safety decisions made based on "typical" human reaction times. You can get a ticket now for "following too closely" based on the assumption that at speed X, you need Y feet of separation to be safe based on a reaction time of N milliseconds.

The reaction time of an autonomous vehicle is far less than N milliseconts, permitting X to be higher and Y much lower.

There have been, for example, "auto trains" of multiple autonomous vehicles operating with ridiculously small separation distances on test tracks.

The problem is - how do you make the transition? A mix of autonomous and human-driven vehicles won't work well unless the autonomous vehicles obey the limits imposed on human-driven vehicles. So you need to segregate the human vehicles from the autonomous ones. This is really difficult in most places.

There's one exception: In many metropolitan areas, highways have HOV lanes. HOV lanes are intended to increase the capacity (in humans per hour) of that lane. In quite a few areas, they have the secondary goal of reducing fuel consumption and emissions per user. (In some places, this goal has been prioritized to the point where vehicles that meet certain emissions/efficiency standards are permitted in HOV lanes with fewer occupants than the normal HOV limit - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-occupancy_vehicle_lane#Qualifying_vehicles. [wikipedia.org])

A big problem with current HOV lanes is, honestly, the humans. On quite a few business trips to Long Island, my coworkers and I met the HOV lane criteria during a time the HOV lane restrictions were enforced (usually the tail end/beginning end of that period when traffic was lighter than the peaks the HOV lane was designed for). In quite a few cases, there were enough HOV-eligible vehicles that the HOV lanes weren't any faster than the main lanes. In a few cases, a single vehicle meeting HOV eligibility but with a slow driver would render the HOV lane significantly slower than the non-HOV lanes of the highway.

Autonomous vehicles would be the perfect solution to the remaining HOV lane problems. Most likely, the cost of autonomous vehicles will mean that the costs of them meeting above-average emissions/efficiency standards won't be that much more. (After all, Google's "open road" driverless vehicle is a Prius, which meets the "single occupant in HOV lane exception" requirements in many areas that have such exceptions for "green" vehicles.) - Autonomous vehicles can achieve significantly higher speeds at lower separations in a HOV lane, significantly increasing the lane's capacity significantly even for single-occupant vehicles.

The problem is, of course - the transition. Making a HOV lane into an autonomous-only lane requires enough autonomous vehicles to justify it. It probably won't work with mixed vehicles at all - you don't get the speed/separation capacity benefits.

Slower is not more efficient... It's a product of how a vehicle is designed which in itself is a trade off.

Cars today are designed to be most efficient at around 50mph because thats a sensible medium where speed limits typically range between 30 and 80mph... If they designed the car to be most efficient at 70-80mph then it would likely be less efficient at 30.

At slower speeds, the energy used for motion will be lower, but then the journey will be take longer so the lower level of power will be in use for a longer period of time. And there is background energy use which is not related to motion, such as lights etc... This power use will be there regardless of speed, and thus a longer journey will increase it.

Air resistance is roughly proportional to the square of the vehicle speed. This means that the influence of air resistance on fuel efficiency is roughly linear in vehicle speed.

No, it is worse than linear. The _force_ of the wind is quadratic with speed. Since power = force * speed, the power needed is cubic with speed. That means at double speed you spend eight times more power to overcome wind resistance, but since you also cover twice the distance, the fuel used per mile grows quadratic. Rolling resistance is constant force, and constant fuel per mile independent of speed. And I think engine losses are quadratic with rpm, so choosing a higher gear will safe fuel - as long as yo

thats not entirly true, slower is not generally more efficient. take for example driving 50MPH in a 2nd or 3rd gear, this will cause more gas to be used than driving 75 in a low gear

Driving at higher speeds is normally less efficient because parasitic effects (drag, friction, etc...) are proportional to speed, meaning the faster you go, the more energy you waste fighting these effects. The reason your typical Suburban assault vehicle gets better mileage on the highway is because when driving in traffic, you have to stop and slow down a lot which in conventional vehicles is a tremendous waste of energy.

Notice that in a pure electric vehicle (like the Nissan Leaf, or Mitsubishi Miev), the highway mileage is worse. This is because pure electric vehicles use full regenerative braking which recovers most of the energy when a vehicle slows down or stops, so the parasitic effects are once again the most significant.

Driving at a constant speed generally has less impact on fuel efficiency (as long as you're not using the brakes), than driving at lower speeds. There is some variation on this because engine efficiency has a significant role to play as well. I.C. engines generally do not have very good efficiency at very high or very low RPMs. This means that the transmission has engineered "sweet spots" in which the vehicle operates most efficiently overall. In modern cars, these are generally set to about 40 MPH and 65 MPH, being that these are the two most commonly used speeds (and the ones the EPA uses for their fuel efficiency measurements). In all, Changing the speed limits will have a significant downward effect on vehicle efficiency because modern cars have been designed, and customized to fit the current speed limits.

As electric cars become more prominent, these limitations will mostly be eliminated (no gearbox means no tuning to specific speeds), leaving just the parasitic factors. This will mean that as cars become more efficient overall, speed will play a bigger and bigger role in mileage.

Strictly speaking, the parasitic effects are worse than proportional to speed. The power required to overcome wind resistance is cubic in speed (the energy is quadratic in distance, since you get there faster). The knee hits different vehicles at different speeds -- bicycles, it's around 20mph (low-friction tires and drive-train, little aero optimization), cars at somewhat higher speeds. But once most of your friction is from the wind, going faster is very costly.

The shift points in which your car will shift to the next gear as ganhadude says, is not insignificant as well. You are likely more efficient driving at a slightly faster speed if your car will shift up to the next gear. Say doing 55 with the car at 1400 RPM vs doing 60 with the car at 800 RPM. Not all cars shift at the same point, but most US cars are designed to do very well at 55 MPH.

I've been trying since I was a kid. Every time I'd try to read or play video games, ANYTHING that took my eyes off the outdoors, I'd get carsick. I found car trips very boring because the only thing I could do to entertain myself was listen to music and look out the window.

I fell in love with driving simply because it gives me something FUN to do when I'm in a vehicle.

Once you get autonomous cars driving safer than humans on average (and I would be surprised if we haven't already passed that point, because humans get themselves into an awful lot of trouble operating motor vehicles), a manual override would be one of the worst possible things you could add. Think about it: when is a human driver most likely to override the car's AI? In a situation that they perceive as an emergency, say a pedestrian jumping out into the street, getting cut off at an intersection, so on and so forth. And when would the ultra-fast computational abilities of a computer be the most important? You guessed it, those same situations. If you give humans the option to take control, you can be sure that more often than not they're going to use it at the worst possible moments.

I don't know why everyone seems to be under the impression that these things are just going to blindly follow maps and GPS, but that's not how it works at all. They're equipped with all kinds of sensors and cameras that let them examine their environment, and they're not going to turn onto a "road" that isn't actually there. Will there be some freak accidents that could potentially have been avoided by manual controls? Sure there will, but they'll be far, far outweighed by the avoidable accidents that will result from letting humans take control.

I tend to agree that the technology for acceptable self driving cars is probably quite a ways off.

The current crop of such cars are merely aimed at getting around safely and not running into anything. They don't currently notice that two lanes to the right they could be moving much faster, and are content to putz along in the slow lane following a city bus that stops every two blocks.

They don't watch brake lights 4 cars ahead to provide clues about the need to slow down, and instead rely on slower speeds and (more than) adequate spacing. They don't yield to people in the next lane with their turn signal on indicating a merge, and again rely on excess space so that they are never in situation of failing to allow a merge.

In many other ways, they drive like student drivers, except they do it ALL the time and never learn, never improve.

But I disagree that these will appeal to the rich or to high end car owners. You don't buy a high end car to NOT drive it.If there is no environmentalism goodie-two-shoes angle, the rich won't buy this to park in the garage next to the unused Prius.

Commuters. People who can put the commute time to good use, are the likely target market. Especially where that commute time is an hour or more.

That'd be perfect--I would never have to find a parking spot, I could just tell my autonomous car to circle the block until I am done. A gallon of gas costs far less than a valet or a ramp (especially if my car is efficient and the computer only lets it accelerate super slow and use the highest possible gear at all times).

Sure, my slowpoke car driving in circles will just create more congestion and emissions for everyone else...but fuck 'em! at least I didn't have to find a parking spot.

It would seem the summary author hasn't been driving on the freeway anywhere in the US for the last 30 years. The normal speed of traffic is 10% over the limit. It is far from limited to the rich.

It seems far more likely that these cars obey the speed limit today simply as a condition of being used on the public roads. That restriction is unlikely to prevail in production, as a lot of people enjoy driving, and wouldn't buy them if they came with a huge number of restrictions. The rich seem to me to be the last group who will buy such cars.

Further there is no felony modification laws that I am aware of. As long as the vehicle is street legal just about anything goes. And if its not street legal its merely an infraction and a fix-it-ticket.

This is where mod points would of come in handy. I agree completely. I am in my 40s and there is no way in Hel I would let a car drive me around. One of the reasons I prefer driving a manual over an automatic (dont' get me started on that flappy paddle bullshit either:P ).

I could see people wanting the laws for autonomous vehicles to follow the laws for aircraft -- where parts and software have to be certified and it is illegal to use non-certified or modified parts. That path would make autonomous vehicles a lot more expensive (and have fewer "toy" features).

I think the real problem with autonomous vehicles is that there is a sizable percentage of people who would "bully" them. You know the thing is going to give you the right of way and slow down to keep a safe distance, so why not cut in front of them, etc. Then who wants a car with a pushover as an automatic pilot? But what lawyer would okay even a slightly aggressive autopilot?

I'd say autonomous vehicles would be great for taxis in cities with large, dense urban areas... but the taxi companies would fight that I think (unless they decided they could replace all the drivers with minimum wage button pushers).

If you are worried about your autonomous car losing dick-waggling contests, then perhaps you have forgotten that the point is to get from point A to point B in safety and comfort. The spare time you gain by not driving yourself should more than compensate for a minute or two lost to people who get their jollies from winning a pissing contest with an inanimate driver.

The OP is confused. Rich people don't care what speed they go at, but they HATE to be kept waiting. So, provided they can use their travelling time productively the speed of getting from A to B is immaterial - within common-sense boundaries. That's why so many of them have drivers (who DO obey speed limits - safety is more important the richer you become).

Some of this is dictated by the accuracy of the radar guns, but quite frankly the size of the fine comes into play more often than you think.

10% is a conservative estimate of what you can get away with just about everywhere and not have to worry about some hick sheriff's speed trap. On the freeway, anything in keeping with the flow of traffic will seldom get any attention.

Similar reasoning has revealed that rich people also hate waiting in line at the bank, filing their taxes, and telemarketers. In fact, rich people are a lot like you and I—it's just that they're the ones who will most likely be the first adopters of the cars being discussed.

But wow, what a summary. Not only did it start with a bizarre rhetorical question, it answered it, with a solution that was obvious to anyone who had ever seen Will Smith chase robots around for two hours [imdb.com]! Now all we have left to discuss are minutiae like whether rich people enjoy sleeping in as much as everyone else. Bravo, submitter.

Actually, strangely enough, in the 80 mph sections most traffic goes 80 to 85, similar to what it travels in the 75 mph sections. Sure you get the occasional speed freak who bumps up to 90 or more. But the Utah Highway Patrol rarely gives more than a mph allowance in the 80 sections. So those who push over 85 are more likely to get pulled over than those going 85 in a 75 mph section.

I-80 in Pennsylvania is posted at 65 mph, yet trucks routinely travel at 80+ mph on it. It makes one think that the drivers are confusing the route markers for speed limit signs. Even during heavy snow storms they're still going plaid.

Self driving cars will be the vehicle of choice for non-rich people. The cars will be programmed to do ride sharing to reduce costs. People who primarily use autonomous vehicles won't need to own a car. Basically they will be like mini-busses that don't follow set routes or schedules. They will be used by people who are taking the bus today.

Rich people will own their own cars and pay the increased insurance rates to keep the option to drive manually.

were I rich, I would be all over autonomous vehicle for a few reasons:
1) you can probably drive it yourself if you want to speed
2) I could hit the pub and get wrecked and have the car drive me home without worrying about getting arrested for DUI

were I rich, I would be all over autonomous vehicle for a few reasons:1) you can probably drive it yourself if you want to speed2) I could hit the pub and get wrecked and have the car drive me home without worrying about getting arrested for DUI

were I rich, I would be all over autonomous vehicle for a few reasons:
1) you can probably drive it yourself if you want to speed
2) I could hit the pub and get wrecked and have the car drive me home without worrying about getting arrested for DUI

The way DUI laws are written currently, I wonder if you could get a DUI for being in an autonomous vehicle while intoxicated simply because you have the option of taking over control.

Not in PA. You can get a DUI just for walking up to your car with your keys in hand and unlocking the door (I know people that has happened to). Even if you're in the back seat you can be nailed if the keys are in the car too. The one area I've always wondered about is if you're in the back seat sleeping and the keys are in the trunk as the keys aren't readily accessible... but my guess is yes as you can also get busted if you're under the legal limit of.08... in PA that's a soft limit and they can (and ha

Not even, I had a friend who got a DUI for sleeping in the back seat in a parking lot where he was drinking so he could sleep off the drunk. The reason he got the DUI? The keys were inside the car, so he had the ability to drive, if he wasn't passed out drunk in the back. The judge agreed with the cop on this one.

All you need is keys anywhere near, and to be in the vehicle now with the way MADD has pushed to get DUI laws twisted.

were I rich, I would be all over autonomous vehicle for a few reasons:1) you can probably drive it yourself if you want to speed2) I could hit the pub and get wrecked and have the car drive me home without worrying about getting arrested for DUI

If you've ever ridden public transportation, you realize that by not being behind the wheel the need for speed as a passenger is greatly reduced. Similar situation for being a limousine passenger. Pont de l'Alma aside, celebrities for the most part relax while their chauffeurs work to preserve their licenses and future income.

Now, the rich are always seeking competitive advantage; otherwise, they wouldn't be rich, right? I see the rich buying larger less fuel-efficient vehicles that have a full office inside -- or at least what appears to be a full office -- in order to conduct teleconferences during their trips.

Mr. Prophet, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

This is just another law that will need to be adjusted. Self-driven cars will need to be able to drive with the flow of traffic to be safe, which may be above the posted speed limit. So the law should allow self-driven cars to exceed speed limits by a given amount if they detect traffic conditions that necessitate it. If an officer disagrees, the car will provide all the data necessary to validate or dispute the claim.

Of course, once we all have self-driven cars, and speeding tickets cease to be a source of revenue, they'll have to reset all the speed limits to be what is really a safe speed to drive--or just eliminate the concept for self-driven cars once they prove to be able to self-determine a safe speed. That will happen at about the same time human-driven cars are banned from major highways.

even not thinking about costs a change over time frame to auto-cars is a long time and there are still likely to be area that will need to be manual drive. As haveing mixed auto drive / manual drive car can lead to some issues.

Also stuff like Bucket Trucks and other stuff like them on the road will likely also need to be manual drive and at times need to be on auto drive only roads.

If autonomous driving means access to a special lane that moves faster during commute time then the rich will gladly pay up. Hybrids are expensive too and a lot of people bought them so they could drive solo in the carpool lane.

Most people get the market case for automatic driving wrong. It's not for driving on freeways. It's for driving your car without you, to and from parking. You drive to where you want to go, and then your car goes off and parks somewhere. When you want your car back, you call it, and it comes to you. Malls, airports, and downtowns equipped for this will be very popular.

Parking gets cheaper, because it can be further away, stacked higher, and not on high-value land. Automatic cars aren't bothered by having to drive to level 14 of the parking structure.

Or parking goes away because instead of going to park, the car you rode in goes off to give someone else a ride. When you want to go somewhere else, you call a car that may or may not be the car you arrived in.

Then you get that hollow feeling like I do with my automatic vacuum cleaner. I just got one of those Neato models with the LiDAR. I constantly ask: Did it make it to the charging station? Is it stuck in my bedroom again? There have been a few times when it got stuck and just gave up. I couldn't imagine waiting an indeterminate amount of time to have your car pull up to get you with the wife/gf also waiting.

if you're allowing the car to self-drive, then chances are you are distracted by some other activity like watching tv/movie, surfing the internet, following up on a litany of work email messages. If you do the math, going 15mph over the speed limit only saves, on average, about 6 - 8 min to destination except for longer trips. Ive wasted more than 6 - 8 min just scanning slashdot this hour. I don't think there would be much notice about not going 'fast'

for those 1hr commutes just take a nap till you reach destination.

for those late night bar activities - tell the car to take you home, meanwhile you're crashed in the back seat

Most of the time i drive fast because i like driving fast. Honestly the amount of time saved by going 85 or 90 instead of 70 is pretty trivial. But here's the thing about driving fast, at least for me. It's really not the same thing if someone _else_ is driving fast while i'm in the car. At best it makes no impression at all, at worst it's terrifying. You don't get the same sense of zooming down the freeway when you're not at the wheel.

So i think if you _really_ want to drive fast, you're not going to be interested in an autonomous vehicle. If you're interested in an autonomous vehicle it's because you don't want to deal with the hassle of driving yourself. And if you're kicking back reading or cruising the internet or whatever while the car drives itself, do you really care if a 15 mile commute takes 11 minutes at 85 mph or 13 minutes at 70 mph?

I'm sure the speed limits will be raised for autonomous vehicles once there are enough of them to make a difference, but it will be purely for logistic reasons, not because rich speed demons are demanding to be driven by a CPU at a higher velocity.

(And for that matter, the people rich enough to influence laws to that degree already have autonomous vehicles. They come with a special module called a "chauffeur" which can be directed to drive at whatever speed they want, traffic permitting.)

If you commute in rush hour traffic, you don't care about the speed limit, because you're not going to get the chance to hit it, anyway.

What this technology will do, in fact, is encourage longer commutes. People will be able to work, nap, play games, watch TV. The interior of the car will be redesigned to accommodate the driver engaging in a range of activities while commuting.

Human nature is the cause of most speeding. The "I wanna get there as fast as I can," the "This is fun zipping through traffic" or the "Why won't this guy move over and let me pass" thought processes as well as tendencies to try to keep up with or ahead of other drivers is what leads most people to speed either intentionally or by unintentionally going just a little bit faster and faster until they notice they are flying 85 mph in a 65 zone.

But with Autonomous cars you take the human nature out of it. Only if I left late will I really want the car to go faster and faster. If I can truly just let the car drive, I don't care how fast it's going, I'm too busy reading my book or surfing the web or engaging in a phone call or text conversation. If I can trust the car to get me there safely, with it able to read and even communicate with the other cars on the road to deal with traffic, road hazards, and other obstacle, I won't be paying attention to what the other cars will be doing.

Plus once we get the majority of cars on the road so equipped, and they do prove to be safe (substantially reducing the frequency and severity of accidents) I can easily see the speed limits being boosted to match what the cars are capable of.

Speed itself is rarely the cause of accidents, it's people who are speeding trying to weave through slower traffic, taking curves and corners too fast and encountering unexpected weather conditions (wet or icy roads) while speeding. Autonomous cars, talking to the traffic system and to other cars should be able to more quickly and safely maneuver through traffic, allow for differing speed limits for different lanes of traffic, merge onto and off of freeways more smoothly and safely due to planning and communication with other vehicles to allow merging, no more jumping 5 lanes at the last second because the driver wasn't paying attention and nearly missed his exit.

Truly autonomous cars should actually be able to travel much faster, far more safely than today. But even if they don't, if the car is driving, not the emotional meatbag behind the wheel, the NEED TO SPEED will greatly drop.

I know this article was written from a US perspective where the private car has a different meaning as in many other parts of the developed world.
But however you turn it the first years will likely have a mix of human and automatic vehicles on the road, possibly of even likely with dedicated lanes for each category.

Present traffic rules including speed limits are set because of a variety of reasons, the quality of the road and human fallibility are among the important. When the human factor is taken out speed limits can and will change.
In many parts of Europe speed limits are also set because of the environment, like noise in nature reserves and / or Nitric Oxide or fines levels in build up areas, the last will not change because the car is driver less.

After the transitional years it will become quite pointless to own a car as we know it, you pay for transport the way you are now paying for your internet access.
And by that time personal transport will have evolved to a new very personal public transport with totally different rules.

Damn those rich people screwing us over again. Do you actually sit around all days trying to come up with new ways to be outraged at rich people or what?

Slashdot seems to have become the last, best hope for Communism on the Internet in the last couple of years. Probably as the technical content has declined, the libertarians have moved elsewhere.

Why the outrage at this? I mean, if we are going to compete with the Chinese (a constant theme both on/. and in the rest of society) then the first step is obviously to become better communists than them.